On Monday, Donald Trump became the first presidential candidate to enter the so-called spin room and talk directly to reporters after a general-election debate. And it wasn’t because he won.
“Normally the candidates leave it up to their surrogates to spin for them,” The Daily Show host Trevor Noah said Tuesday night. One of the first things Trump told the press was that he didn’t know “exactly what to expect” when he walked out onto the debate stage. “No, Donald, you don’t know what to expect! Everyone else prepared.”
“I know that if Trump becomes president, there’s a high possibility he’ll destroy the world,” Noah said, “but you have to appreciate these moments. The man was spinning for himself. That’s the equivalent of giving a wedding toast at your own wedding.”
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“Trump had to spin a lot, because the debate did not go well for him,” Noah said, calling out the Republican for blaming his microphone for his poor performance. But somehow, it had no problem picking up his case of the sniffles. “As if people didn’t think Trump was evil before, now he’s using the same complaints as Darth Vader.”
In terms of the spin from Trump’s surrogates, the word that came up again and again to describe his performance was “restrained,” which Noah said doesn’t exactly “sound like a presidential compliment.”
“You realize the bar is so low, no one expects to praise his policies, his ideas, his vision,” Noah said. “They’re just relieved he didn’t cause a scene on stage.” But he wasn’t as “restrained” as his campaign would lead you to believe.
“I thought he lost,” Noah said, which made it so surprising that he was declared the winner by so many online surveys. “I know online polls aren’t accurate,” he added, starting to quote Trump: “Because it could be anyone online voting. It could be the Russians, it could be the Chinese. Hell, it could be some 400-pound person sitting on his bed.”
